


no time to die

by ghoulittle



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Mandalorian Culture, Multi, Original Character(s), Planet Ryloth | Twi'lek, Twi'leks (Star Wars), extended universe and legends content, the inherent eroticism of respect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:19:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27260347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghoulittle/pseuds/ghoulittle
Summary: “Oola.” Fett repeats. “Why did you help me?” He doesn’t have to say why she wouldn't; he willingly worked for her owner, and took good credit from him for the trade of a living man. There were many reasons to have left him, and only one reason to not. "Lyn Me told me what you did for her." Oola says, because she does not think he will accept 'you needed it' as truth.She can't blame him for that. If she had learned anything in the palace, it was that help was never free. It is something she hopes to leave there.(Or: Oola outlives her master, returns home, and becomes the heart of a slave rebellion. And accidentally picks up a bounty hunter somewhere along the way.)
Relationships: Boba Fett/Oola, Nolaa Tarkona/Hirani Kove
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	no time to die

There’s a human walking on the sands.

At least, she'd guess that’s what they are. From her hideaway on the bluffs, she’s watched the figure make progress over the dunes for a handful of hours now, ever since she woke with the suns’ rising and peeked out to see a speck moving in the dunes. It’s slow progress; they keep stumbling and swaying, seeming to lose direction— a trouble that she has avoided by simply not _having_ one in the first place, unsure which direction any of this planet's many Mos' lay in. If only lack of direction was the only reason she’s hidden herself away in a dusty cave for a night and day like some _schutta_.

Her stomach knots tight with sympathy when she sees the wanderer nearly fall for what must be the tenth time, yet her feet stay rooted; the shame of her selfishness knots it further. She should help, Oola knows. It is the right thing to do. But the collar still sits heavy on her neck even if the chain drags freely behind her now, and it’s far too easy to imagine being traded to some farmer or shopkeeper for a speeder bike or a few jugs of water— nevermind that she is worth far more, and nevermind how she hates that _that’s_ where her mind goes instead of protesting being traded at all. 

The wanderer falls, and doesn’t get back up. Oola's bouncing chain sends puffs of sand into the air the entire haphazard slide down the dunes. 

The figure stays blessedly still when she approaches, only the slightest motion of their back making her think they still breathe at all. With these scars it must be one of the bounty hunters, she thinks, and then when she rolls them onto their back, realizes— it’s not just one of the hunters. It’s _the_ hunter. The Mandalorian. His rags are too torn and acid-eaten to match the plain undersuit she remembers from court, and his helmet is gone, but the metal plate hanging over his right breast is unmistakable. It’s painted with a barbed spear and teardrop crossing a white circle, and Oola snatches her fingers back on the sudden, absurd fear that the emblem's barbs will tear her skin.

He’d fallen into the sarlacc’s mouth, and... climbed back out. Maybe he wasn’t human after all, despite how much he looks like one. What human could do that? What _being_ could do that and walk away, even if to fall later?

Oola looks to the thickening line of sienna on the horizon, and back to the man on the ground. He would be far easier to move in time if she woke him somehow, but she can't quite bring herself to shake or strike... _that_. She can only see him waking to break her fingers for it if she slapped her hand to the brown of his cheek. At least unconscious men can't protest indignities, she tells herself when she puts her still-aching arms to work again and begins dragging him through the sand. 

By the time he wakes, the sandstorm has arrived, and Oola has managed to add a few lizards to her little pile of foraged foodstuffs by crushing their heads with a stone. (She’d felt poorer for it as she thought she would—they’d been so skittish, and barely long as her forearm with tails included—but there’s no taking it back now.) At the moment, she’s trying to pry the lean meat from one with her fingers, her teeth still too herbivore-flat in her mouth to strip it the way she should be able to.

She’d propped him up against the cave's wall after dragging him inside the entrance, and he jerks suddenly there, his remaining armor scraping on the stone. She can feel his gaze burning into her forehead within seconds, but doesn’t quite dare look up; she doesn't think there's anything in those eyes she wants to see now that he's awake. This cannot be a man filled with warmth or joys. There’s a moment of silence that stretches and _stretches_. As awkward as it feels, Oola just continues her work— this is not the first time she’s used silence for her shield. Eventually, he speaks first, as scratchy as she expected. “I don’t know your name.” _Oh_. That’s… not what she expected. “...Oola.” she tells him, because her family name means nothing here. “Oola.” Fett repeats, accent curling it strangely. “Why did you help me?” 

He doesn’t have to say why she wouldn't for Oola to know what he means; he willingly worked for her owner, and took good credit from him for the trade of a living man. He would not have been hard to kill while unconscious. He’s of little use as protection against the suns or sand, and trying to turn him into a competitor or enemy for her own profit would probably fail even if she could somehow do that from the middle of the desert.

She hums quietly instead of shrugging, continuing to dig her nails into the meat; the blood will crust under them if she doesn’t suck her fingers clean soon, she thinks with a prickle of distaste. Daughter, to slave, to bloody-fingered savage. She just keeps falling. “Lyn Me would speak with me after her performances, sometimes. She told me what you did for her village.” “I got paid.” He doesn’t have to ask which performer that is; Lyn'me would have turned a _beautiful_ jammy-red right now if she knew he remembered her at all, Oola knows. “As much as moisture farmers can pay." He says nothing to that.

“You should eat.” she tells him, willing to press the advantage if he's decided he has no more words; she has enough to share, and it would be awfully stupid to drag him all the way here only to let him starve. “Yes.” he agrees plainly, shifting closer to her food stash and grabbing a few pieces of cactus fruit. Once halfway through the second fruit, he speaks again. “My ship is still at the palace. Everything else there will have been picked over, but nothing on this planet could have broken into it. We just have to make it back.”

Oola stops working. “...we?” she echoes, teetering somewhere between hope and fear; he’d never taken a single one of Jabba’s offered ‘gifts’, her light reminds her. What meaning does that carry _now_ , here, alone, her shadow points out. He has no reputation to maintain in a cave, in a palace with no lord, in his own vessel. The prisoners she has seen him hand over were frozen in carbonite; voiceless, sightless. No one would ever know if she became just another fixture on his starship. There's another scrape of metal on rock that must be him shifting again. “I would have suffocated in that sandstorm; you didn’t have to help me, and I don’t like owing people things. I’ll fly you anywhere you want. Coruscant. Naboo. Ryloth.”

 _Oh._ Oola looks over at him despite herself. “You don’t need to.” she tells him automatically, and could kick herself for it— how soon would she get an offer like that again? Even if she worked somehow, someplace, on this planet long enough to pay for transport back to Ryloth, who’s to say she wouldn’t just be sold _again_ halfway there or on delivery? She has no _kalikori_ to prove her once-status; she stopped being Oolata’rkona when she was chained, and became just Oola. Oola has no threat of vengeful blood to fall on, no _reason_ to not be rechained. Though she may never have had that in the first place, she thinks sourly. “We pay our debts.” Fett says; his tone is hard, and sounds like he's quoting. A saying of his people, perhaps, or just something of his own. Oola ducks her head in acknowledgement, the ends of her _lekku_ twitching for him even if she doubts he will understand them. “Then you will pay. I… I think Ryloth would be best.” she agrees, trying not to sound as eager as she feels.

Ryloth. It had been a hopeless fantasy only a few days ago, and now she feels as if she’s almost there already. “We’ll leave when the storm passes. Nothing will reach us in this; we should both sleep." Oola supposes she should take offense at how easily he seems to toss out directives at her; she is free now, after all. More or less. At the moment, though, having someone lay out goals makes her feel less unmoored. 

She ends up falling asleep to the sound of the storm outside and his steady breathing while he examines his remaining armor.

**Author's Note:**

>   * quick explanation since i decided i didn’t want hours of exposition: jabba was distracted by something before he triggered the trapdoor to the rancor pit, and oola helped leia strangle him on the barge, but was knocked off the side and down into the sand by a guard in all the chaos before it blew up. boba just fell into the sarlaac pit and crawled/fought his way back out like usual.
>   * _schutta_ : weasel-like creature native to ryloth. and nasty insult by twi'lek standards. 
>   * oola’s misinterpreting his crest here; it’s actually a blood drop and stalk of wheat. but it's not like she'd know that, so… she’s gonna assume it’s something to fit his reputation slash profession.
>   * the incident with lyn me’s village is canon. or, was canon before disney, unsure if they're retconning tiny facts like that. please enjoy the mental image of a young boba hauling tiny twi’lek kids out of a burning schoolhouse, because that's what happened.
>   * _kalikori_ : a traditional twi’lek heirloom passed down through family lines. each parent adds a new piece or decoration to it, cementing their place in the legacy. “hm. family history as living art.” — sabine wren.
>   * tags are preemptive 'cause it looked very sad and empty with only tags for who slash what's in this chapter.
>   * you can find me at [janeghoulittle](http://janeghoulittle.tumblr.com) if you wanna talk or anything! ❤
> 



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